Product description

This PCI Express Dual Tuner card will allow you to watch and record DVB-S2 hi-definition digital satellite TV & DVB-S digital satellite TV as well as digital satellite radio. It's ready with Windows BDA drivers and Linux drivers up to the latest kernel (Tested on Ubuntu, Fedora, openSUSE and other Linux distributions). It's compatible with many popular applications such as Windows 7 Media Center, MediaPortal, DVBlink, DVBDream, DVBViewer, ProgDVB, Skynet, TSreader, XBMC, MythTV,VDRs and more. It supports internet via satellite and high-speed data download. The dual tuner adds the capability to record one channel while watching another.

Specification
Receiving Freq: 950-2150MHz Input level: -69~-23dBm
Supports Data Burst & Tone Burst. Support DiSEqC2.X and Motor
Low profile size: 120x68.6mm (LxH)
Full specification available from manufacturer’s website

System Requirements
Windows 2000/XP/Vista/7/8 or Linux
DirectX 9.0 or later Version
Available PCI Express x1, x4, x8 or x16 slot
Satellite Dish and LNB
For DVB-S: 1GHz CPU or above, 256MB RAM or above, graphics card with16MB RAM or above
For DVB-S2 HDTV: Dual Core CPU, 1GB RAM or above. Graphics card with 64MB RAM or above

Package Contents
PCI-E DVB-S2 Dual TV Tuner Card
Low profile bracket
Software CD

How can I use this product to receive Freesat & FTA programmes?
The service makes use of the same fleet of satellites as satellite service Sky Digital: Astra and Eurobird 1. This means that any satellite dish which has been used to receive this service will be capable of receiving Freesat with the addition of this receiver.

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Product information

Technical Details

Brand

‎Beeper Products

Package Dimensions

‎20.6 x 14.2 x 5 cm; 340.19 Grams

Item model number

‎6980

Manufacturer

‎TBS

Are Batteries Included

‎No

Item Weight

‎340 g

Guaranteed software updates until

‎unknown

Additional Information

ASIN

B0038LU03K

Customer Reviews

3.5 116 ratings

3.5 out of 5 stars

Date First Available

16 Feb. 2010

Warranty & Support

Amazon.com Return Policy:Regardless of your statutory right of withdrawal, you enjoy a 30-day right of return for many products. For exceptions and conditions, see Return details.

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What's in the box?

AV Adapter

TF Card Reader

Customer reviews

3.5 out of 5

116 global ratings

How customer reviews and ratings work

Customers say

Customers like the performance, ease of installation, and quality of the TV tuner card. For example, they mention it works flawlessly, has 4 virtual tuners per real tunner, and allows for at least 8 channel record. That said, some praise its quality. For instance, they say it's an excellent HD TV card, and that it works perfectly on an Ubuntu Server.

AI-generated from the text of customer reviews

48 customers mention43 positive5 negative

Customers like the performance of the TV Tuner Card. They say it works flawlessly, has not had any issues, and runs perfectly on an Ubuntu Server. It has 4 virtual tuners per real tuner, allowing for at least 8 channel record. Customers also mention that it is reliable, simple and cost effective, and that it has been on non-stop for weeks.

"This tuner is great.. dropped it in my windows PC and worked fine with freesat, great PQ. I was looking to make an HTPC with an HP microserver..." Read more

"...So, I can thoroughly recommend this card. It is reliable, simple and cost effective especially compared to some others." Read more

"...has built in drivers for both windows and Linux core,.. so can be used without issue...." Read more

"...The card worked perfectly, even received ITV1 HD straight off the bat...." Read more

26 customers mention23 positive3 negative

Customers find the installation process of the TV Tuner Card to be easy. They mention that the product is reliable, simple, and cost effective. Customers also appreciate the ease of sourcing the drivers from the TBS website and installing them without issue.

"...Card installed with no problems at all. As other reviewers have mentioned, it comes with a flying lead for you to plug separate power into card...." Read more

"...will power to search and poke about, getting the tuner card working is reasonably straight forward...." Read more

"...sure beats the old two channel recorder.Setup of the TBS card is nice an simple,.. yes there are some little foibles,.. you need to set..." Read more

"...Card installation easy. OS is Windows 7 64-bit, which strangely does not display a "found new hardware"...." Read more

15 customers mention15 positive0 negative

Customers are satisfied with the quality of the TV tuner card. They mention that it is an excellent HD TV card, an excellent card for MediaCenter with Freesat HD, and an excellent home server. Customers also appreciate the great PQ and the fact that the card itself is very reliable.

"...is great.. dropped it in my windows PC and worked fine with freesat, great PQ. I was looking to make an HTPC with an HP microserver and use it..." Read more

"This is an excellent product.The card itself is very reliable - my system has been running without issue for a couple of months now - and it..." Read more

"The TBS6981 is a great dual tuner S2 satellite card for your media center...." Read more

"...Integrates flawlessly with Win8 Media Centre. Great product and great service from ARC." Read more

12 customers mention12 positive0 negative

Customers are satisfied with the picture quality of the TV tuner card. They mention that the quality of HD picture is superb, fast channel switching, and excellent HD, with virtually no power draw. The card is great and allows them to view BBC 1 HD, BBC HD, ITV HD, and Channel 4. It also records and plays back HD TV programs without any slowdown.

"...Picture quality is superb, although obviously dependent on your GC and general set up, on HD channels colours seem brighter with more depth then..." Read more

"...Performance of the card is great, HD works a treat, simultaneous recordings work fine. I'd happily recommend this card to anyone...." Read more

"...be very quick, much quicker than my FreeView card; the picture quality is also much better than FreeView..." Read more

"...Great hardware this with fast channel switching and excellent HD with virtually no power draw too.Chuffed!" Read more

7 customers mention7 positive0 negative

Customers like the size of the TV Tuner Card. They say it fits into a low profile case without issues, and is good for low profile cases due to the low height design. Some say that the low profile card came in handy in their new Media Centre PC.

"...The low profile card certainly came in handy here...." Read more

"...All the required parts came with the card and it fitted snugly as one would expect...." Read more

"...Over all, I can heartily recommend this product. It is also good for low profile cases due to the low height design...." Read more

"...Fitted into the box easily, and whilst the drivers need to be compiled and installed, with a bit of patience, this wasn't too difficult...." Read more

7 customers mention7 positive0 negative

Customers appreciate the value of the TV Tuner Card. They mention that it is a superb card with great value.

"...It is reliable, simple and cost effective especially compared to some others." Read more

"This card is very competitively priced and fills a hole that Hauppauge seem to have left in the market for a dual HD satellite receiver...." Read more

"excellent product that just works! good price too...." Read more

"Excellent value card but problems with Win8 MCE..." Read more

18 customers mention11 positive7 negative

Customers are mixed about the channel. Some mention that all the expected channels are found, including C4 HD, and that it works well with myth. However, others say that Windows Media Center does not find all the available channels, and the card can only receive all Freesat channels in the UK. Some customers also mention that the card has issues with the Windows Media center, and some customers are disappointed with the lack of sorted channels or an EPG.

"...You can watch two channels at once (or record one / watch the other), which is essential if you're sharing your card with another device...." Read more

"...In some apps no HD channels were found. As I have 8 sat links in the house I know it is not a satellite installation issue...." Read more

"...though is that this card works a treat in Media Center, channel changing much quicker than the card it replaced...." Read more

"...I found channel changing to be very quick, much quicker than my FreeView card; the picture quality is also much better than FreeView..." Read more

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Sherlock Holmes

Very Good tuner.. struggling to get good software..

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 15 April 2013

Verified Purchase

This tuner is great.. dropped it in my windows PC and worked fine with freesat, great PQ.
I was looking to make an HTPC with an HP microserver and use it instead of an STB. The low profile card certainly came in handy here. The only technical problems i had was intermittent control when I connected it to the motor, which to be fair is probably a failing of the microserver power output and not the card. Overall better than my old Skystar for sure.

The big letdown was the integration with software, i found nothing as fluid as even a basic STB and while xbmc looked great its integration with the backend like VDR and Mediaportal or Myth was just too flakey for me to use as a replacement. I tried on both Linux and Windows and neither suited me. Maybe i will try again when the HTPC software is more mature, and better able to integrate the cards features.

Regards Pete

Helpful

Trooper Hill

Good value and reliable

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 24 April 2013

Verified Purchase

I purchased this dual input DVB-S3 card to build a Home Theatre PC as I was fed up paying Sky a lot of money, only to still have to put up with their advertising - either charge us or advertise to us, you can't have it both ways!

The card arrived quickly and I proceeded to build my HTPC - adding a Blu-Ray drive for good measure. Card installed with no problems at all. As other reviewers have mentioned, it comes with a flying lead for you to plug separate power into card. Like others I didn't connect this lead and the card seems to work fine anyway. I suspect the lead is only necessary if you are using a motorised head, to line up different satellites, which is being powered from the card. The card will do this via the antenna cable.

I previously had Sky+HD, so already had two cables from a dual head LNB. This made my installation very easy - there are several satellites close enough together to pick up with the Sky dish. If you are starting from scratch, you will need to install a dual head with two cables (you can't just split the signal)to get the most out of this card. Incidentally, TBS also do a quad input card if you are really keen on viewing/recording multiple programmes at the same time. With this card you can view one channel and record another at the same time or record two at the same time if you wish.

With my particular installation, I have a USB DVB-T adapter I use as well, which means I can record two and view one at the same time - not that I have ever needed to. The DVB-T adapter is useful as there are a few TV channels available on Freeview that are not available on satellite - Pick TV being one.

I have not used the supplied software, so I cannot comment on it. Instead I tried Microsoft Windows Media Center (WMC) first, which worked seamlessly with this card, but in the end I have opted for Mediaportal [...] which is a free program, although they always welcome donations. It is an extremely flexible program, but you do need to know a bit about what you are doing in order to set it up and use it. It will allow you to have the card in your HTPC, but have other computers on your network use it as well - might be where the quad channel unit comes in useful?

If you have never built a HTPC before, a word of caution. It is not the same as using Sky or Freesat. Both of them supply their own Electronic Programme Guide (EPG), relevant to their own systems. They are both encoded, I believe, and not therefore easily accessible to you. WMC downloads a lot of EPG information to your system over the Internet, but it is not perfect and tends not to see far enough into the future for advanced record programming. I use a site called Digiguide [...] which gives a huge amount of programme information and for a very reasonable annual subscription will send you regular and detailed programme updates. With Mediaportal, you can use a built in process to import this information (or free alternatives), although you will have to map the data to correct channels. In addition, you will need to look up satellite information, for some channels, on the Internet to scan correctly and find them, as neither WMC nor Mediaportal found them automatically. This mainly applies to the rather few HD channels currently available.

So, I can thoroughly recommend this card. It is reliable, simple and cost effective especially compared to some others.

3 people found this helpful

Helpful

Oli

A good low-profile option but awful Linux drivers

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 25 February 2016

Verified Purchase

Beside the occasional hard lock-up (which only happened with their driver activated) their whole driver development process was what made me drop this card. They use an ancient v4l branch and push the whole thing. You have to compile this and replace the one that ships with your kernel. In my case this also meant that a driver I needed (from modern v4l) wasn't available.

TBS needs to work toward mainlining their drivers. This closed source nonsense has no place in this day and age. I won't touch their products again until they have and I recommend you don't either.

Helpful

DLD

Rather unpredictable with most software

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 4 August 2014

Verified Purchase

It worked sometimes. Probably the most difficult device I've ever used. It comes with various apps on the CD. None of these are very good, but they are usable some of the time. I have tried a number of other apps (including nextPVR, Media Portal, J.River etc) and I constantly got errors saying the device failed to work. Start the same app again and it might work or it might not. Do a search for channels and it would find loads, but fail to play some of them. In the end I gave up and sent the device back. I never did work out whether it was the device, the sat link, or the software. Just to make it more complicated, not all apps found the same channels. In some apps no HD channels were found. As I have 8 sat links in the house I know it is not a satellite installation issue. Whether it was a device issue, or the apps just couldn't drive the device, I don't know. In the end, I decided it was not worth the effort involved.

Helpful

Brand	Beeper Products
Hardware interface	USB, PCI
Platform	Windows 7, Windows
Included components	TF Card Reader, AV Adapter
Video standard	MPEG-4

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TBS6981 PCI-E DVB S2 HD Dual Tuner Card

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TBS6981 PCI-E DVB S2 HD Dual Tuner Card

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